Bad News

Dortmunder shook his head. “We want in.”

“I heard that,” Guilderpost said, “and Andy, I’m sorry, but it isn’t possible. There are already people involved—”

“Well, there’s go

“I’m not going to do that!”

“Listen, Fitzroy,” Kelp said. “It’s pretty clear, what you’re doing is go

There was a brief silence while Guilderpost thought that over, and then he said doubtfully, “I suppose we could meet.”

“Us and Irwin? And your other partners?”

“Just one other.”

“So you’re three.” Kelp thought about his last meeting with Guilderpost and Irwin. He looked at Tiny, then nodded to himself and said, “I think we’re three, too.”

“Andy!” came the reproving voice from the phone.

“Well, there’s this other fella here, we hang out sometimes. Hold on.” To Tiny, he said, “Tiny, you want a piece of this?”

The phone asked, “Tiny?”

Tiny said, “How much?”

“That’s a good question. I’ll find out.” Into the phone, Kelp said, “How much are we talking here, Fitzroy?”

“I’m not going to—What are you—”

“Just ballpark, Fitzroy. I’m not asking for a guarantee. But roughly how much? In total, how many commas?”

Another little pause. A sigh shivered down the phone lines. “Two.”

Kelp nodded, and said to Tiny, “Two.”

Tiny nodded, and said, “In.”

Kelp said to Guilderpost, “Tiny’s in, so that’s three of us, and if we make this meeting pretty soon, maybe there won’t be any more.”

“Good.”

“So where and when?”

“I’ll have to make arrangements,” Guilderpost said. “Why don’t I phone you tomorrow, say three o’clock? I’ll tell you then where we’ll meet.”

“Gee, I’d rather not do that, Fitzroy,” Kelp said, “not after what happened to a friend of mine.”

“And what would that be?”

“Well, there was this other fella, and he and my friend had a little misunderstanding, bad blood, threats, that kinda thing, and the other fella called and said why don’t we meet someplace neutral and talk it over, and my friend said okay, and the other fella said I’ll call you tomorrow at two o’clock and tell you where we’ll meet so the next day my friend made sure he was home at two o’clock and the phone didn’t ring.”

“It didn’t?”

“No. The house blew up instead.”

“Well, that’s terrible,” Guilderpost said.

“That’s what my friend thought,” Kelp said. “Or what he would have thought, you know what I mean. So why don’t we just go ahead and meet tomorrow?”

“So soon? I—”

“Won’t be able to set anything up. And neither will we. That bridge where we saw each other last?”

“Yes?”

“If you don’t go over that little bridge, if you head for Jones Beach, you come to these huge parking lots that fill up in the summer with everybody’s cars that are going to the beach.”

“Yes, I know them.”

“This time of year, there’s nobody there,” Kelp said. “A fella in a car in the middle of that parking lot, nobody could sneak up on him or stash anything there ahead of time or anything like that. That fella could feel safe.”

“You, you mean, Andy,” Guilderpost said.

“Well, I meant both of us, Fitzroy,” Kelp told him. “How about eleven tomorrow morning in Parking Area Six? Out in the middle of it.”

“That’s rather early, isn’t it?”

“Is it? We could make it earlier. Would ten be better?”

“No, no, I don’t want it earlier.”

“Let me say this, Fitzroy,” Kelp told him. “I’m glad you called when you did, because I was getting tired of the responsibility of Mr. Redcorn. I figured, next week, I was go

“Then I’m glad we chatted this week,” Guilderpost said.

“Me, too, Fitzroy. See you eleven tomorrow morning, Parking Area Six.” And he hung up and carried the phone back to the bedroom.

When he came out, J.C. pointed a dark red–nailed finger at him and said, “Andy, if you don’t tell what that was all about, I’m going to have to throw you out the window.”

“No need,” Kelp said. “I’ll tell you the whole story.”

But then A

So that was a delay, not Kelp’s fault, and now everything had to come out to the other table, next to the dining room table, and A

So while Tiny carved and A

“First,” A

She’d made him buy a bunch of bottles of red wine with corks in them, so everybody now had a glass of wine in front of their place. Kelp picked up his and said, “Well, Thanksgiving tradition. I think maybe we got us something going here.”

“Hear hear,” everybody said, and tasted the wine, and agreed it was very good stuff, and picked up their knives and forks, and J.C. said, “All right. So why did they do it?”

“If you mean the switch,” Kelp told her, “that’s what John and me keep asking them and they keep not wanting to tell us. If you mean anything else, they don’t want anybody to know what they’re up to, and we figure that’s because it’s go

J.C. shook her head. “I’ve done some cons,” she said. “I’ve done some scams. I tell myself I oughta be able to figure this out.”

May said, “A

“It’s the apples, I think,” A

Dortmunder said to J.C., “I don’t think we got enough information yet.” To Kelp, he said, “There’s another partner, right?”

“That’s what he says,” Kelp said, and to A

“We do, Andy,” A

J.C. said, “So maybe the other partner is what’ll tell you.”

Dortmunder said to A

“Speaking of which,” Tiny said, “that’s a very tight schedule, Kelp.”

“I didn’t want to give them a chance to booby-trap us.”

“Tight for us.”

Dortmunder said, “No, I think Andy’s right. We’re not trying to blow them up, just talk to them. Doesn’t take that much preparation.”

“Maybe,” Tiny said, and patted A

“Good,” A

Kelp said, “It would be nice if we had a car with a remote control. And a bomb, you know? Send it out there, see what happens. If nothing happens, then we go out there with the other car.”

J.C. said, “You’re going to have to give me the recipe for these creamed onions, A